A HAVE-A-GO hero shopkeeper fought off a crazed knifeman with his bare hands.
Anil Sharma was slashed as he grappled with the robber, who was wielding a six-inch kitchen knife, during a raid at Premier Food and Wine on Market Street in Milnsbridge.
The 46-year-old defended himself with a chair as the attacker demanded cash from his till – and forced him to flee empty-handed.
“I would do the same again,” he said.
“Once you give in to one person like that, word gets around and other people think they can do the same.
“I guess the adrenalin kicked in.
“On the other hand, maybe my family would have thought it would have been wiser to give him the money.
“In one way I suppose it sends a message out. In another way I guess I was lucky.”
Mr Sharma said he had not been targeted by robbers during his four years at the shop before the incident on Friday night.
The father-of-two was serving a customer when the masked man walked in at about 10.30pm and pulled out the knife.
He said: “At first I thought he was joking and then he grabbed the customer by the throat and said, ‘Give me the money.’
“He lunged at me and just missed my face.
“For about five seconds I was going to open the till, but then I thought, I work hard enough for my money and I’m not about to give it to him.
“I put my hands up to try to push the knife away. I was just angry. Then I picked up a chair and fought him back.
“I threw the chair at him and he ran out.”
It was only after the incident Mr Sharma realised he had suffered cuts to his hands. He said he called the police but then carried on serving customers until the shop closed at 11pm.
Mr Sharma added: “When you see something like this on TV, you don’t know how you’d react. It’s just a spur of the moment decision to fight back.”
The robber was white, slim, about 5ft 10ins tall and in his late 20s.
He was wearing a dark jacket, dark tracksuit bottoms and a light blue scarf covering the bottom half of his face to the bridge of his nose.
The attempted robbery was one of four armed raids on shops in Huddersfield in the last month.
Det Insp Mark Truelove, of the Kirklees divisional intelligence unit, said: “Anyone prepared to use or threaten violence with a gun or knife is potentially just one move away from taking someone’s life, often for just a few cigarettes or a small sum of money.
“For obvious reasons I would welcome any information which could lead to the identity of anyone committing this type of crime.”
Call police on 0845 6060606 or Crimestoppers, anonymously, on 0800 555111.
